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Puppy Feeding Timeline

Your new puppy may seem small but it will take somewhere between 12 to 24 months for them to grow into an adult, depending on their breed. This means there’s a lot of developing for them to do in a short space of time.

Your puppy’s age, weight and breed can all determine how much food they’ll need to be healthy. So to help you know what’s best for your puppy’s health, follow our Feeding Timeline below.

Birth

If possible, your puppy should be with the mother and be allowed to nurse. The mother’s milk provides the best nutrition as well as antibodies which help protect your puppy from disease. From birth up to six months of age, puppies should eat two to four times as much as an adult dog to support growth.

4 weeks

Start weaning your puppy onto solid food from around 4 to 6 weeks. As puppies have high caloric and nutritional needs, the ideal puppy foods will be a good source of protein, calcium and calories.

You could begin introducing your puppy to puppy food by blending the food with milk replacer. Offer this mixture three to four times a day, and gradually reduce the amount of milk replacer in the mixture, until your puppy is happy with the solid food. As well as helping your puppy gradually learn to adapt to solid food, gastric upset is minimised.

6 weeks

Any nursing from the mother can stop from around 6 to 8 weeks.

8-12 weeks

By around eight weeks of age, your puppy should be eating solid food and meal times can take place three to four times a day. You can however feed your dog twice a day if it suits your schedule. Do this by dividing the amount of food you’d normally give into two meals instead of three or four.

6 months old

Ideally your puppy should now be eating two meals a day, if this hasn't already happened. You can also start reducing the amount of food, following guidelines provided by food manufacturers or your vet and adjusting as necessary. If you’re feeding too much, most dogs will let you know by leaving some behind in their bowl.

Once your dog reaches maturity...

Your dog will let you know when to move over to adult food either by eating less or by starting to put on too much weight.

You can switch to adult food slowly over the course of one to two weeks by gradually mixing together increasing amounts of the adult food with decreasing amounts of puppy food to minimise gastric upset.

The correct time will depend on whether your dog is a small, medium or a large breed.

Large breeds

Large breeds (over 80 lbs/36kg) can take up to two years to reach maturity.